This is the fourth US patent application in an ongoing family of patents related to the use of electronic distance measurements in a triangulation/multilateration architecture for large-scale metrology applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,895,015 Method for measuring the structural health of a civil structure, is drawn to methods using trilateration/multilateration for measuring structural health parameters for a bridge, a building, and a crane. U.S. Pat. No. 8,209,134 Methods for modeling the structural health of a civil structure based on electronic distance measurements, is drawn to methods using differences between measurements made by trilateration/multilateration and finite element models, or empirical models, to determine a structural health parameter for a civil structure. U.S. Pat. No. 9,354,043 Methods for measuring and modeling the structural health of pressure vessels based on electronic distance measurements, is drawn to methods using trilateration/multilateration to determine a structural health parameter of a pressure vessel.
This application is drawn to methods using differences between measurements made by trilateration/multilateration and a finite element model of prestressed concrete for the process of tensioning/detensioning the concrete.
This is a pioneering field that brings together heretofore unrelated disciplines of those skilled in the art of high precision electronic distance measurement metrology instrumentation, those skilled in the art of nondestructive testing, those skilled in the art of finite element modeling, and those skilled in the art of large-scale structural engineering. Due to the fact that these disciplines typically belong to non-overlapping professional societies, read different journals and trade magazines, attend different conferences and trade shows, and work in different industries, a large section of the cumulative application is necessary in order to teach the fundamentals and nomenclature of the most closely associated prior arts in order to bring together those unrelated disciplines.
At least part of the motivation for the inventions is drawn from lessons learned from past experiences. A survey of some examples related to each invention is described in the BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION. The state-of-the art of conventional instrumentation for each discipline is also included.